Willie Nelson does it all for his love of music. It is the mistress of music that keeps him away from home and on the road more than 200 days of the year. At age 68, he doesn't plan to retire or slow down any time soon. He's still living life the same way he did back in 1973, when he first presented himself as the prototype for the country outlaw.\nThe other reason for his torrid pace is his fans. At the IU Auditorium Saturday night, he played to a packed house. The crowd was mostly older fans in town for the Homecoming weekend. Everyone in the crowd knew what they could expect from Nelson. He has been making hits for more than 40 years. When Nelson took the stage in his black clothes and cowboy hat, his hair in its trademark pigtails, they had no reason to think the night's performance would be anything less than stellar.\nDuring the past 20 years, Nelson's most popular work has been duets. From Waylon Jennings and Merle Haggard to Dr. John and B.B. King, it seems as if Nelson has done a duet with just about everybody. With a new album of duets with such high profile artists as Kid Rock and Sheryl Crow due early next year, it seems as if he will never get back to seriously doing what he does best.\nNelson's best work has always been his interpretations and song phrasing done on a small scale. His best album, 1975's "The Red Headed Stranger," contained such a low-fi approach and spare sound that his record company thought it was a demo. The duets, while they remain the most popular of his work, mark the low point of his creative output. His latest album, "Rainbow Connection," a simple collection of children's songs, was one of his most endearing albums of the last two decades because of its lackadaisical approach and lack of pretensions.\nSomewhat unfortunately, Saturday night's concert displayed the same mindset that keeps Nelson making his duets albums. Throughout the two hour, 40-plus song set, he hardly played a song that the whole crowd didn't already know. Taking no song or set breaks, Nelson and his band blazed through the best known of his song catalog as if they had someplace else to be. \nAs each song melted into the next, the crowd roared as soon as they recognized which hit was being played. Nelson plodded along, playing "Whiskey River," "Crazy," "Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain" and "Mama, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys." He covered all his bases to make sure no one would leave disappointed about the song he didn't play.\nThere were a few precious moments where Nelson came into his own, presenting the subtleties that make his music so glorious. These mostly consisted of the interplay between him and his band, on songs like "The Great Divide," where the band's jazzy notes met the Spanish classical influence in the song. \nNelson has had a long career, and you can't fault him for choosing to rehash his greatest hits in concert -- but at the same time, it's difficult to watch a once-viable artist stay stuck in the past. He has shown at times that he can still be much more than a nostalgia act. His live shows and duet albums show that he may just now be succumbing to the commercialism that he had once fought so hard against.
Nelson lackluster in Auditorium show
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